August 15 – Wednesday
We were both up just after 05:00 and decided to get underway as soon as possible to take advantage of the slack tide and then have the incoming tide current with us for most of the way to the C&D Canal. Checking the WX forecast again, it was similar to the night before but higher winds – 15-20 kts. with gusts to 25 in the northern part of the bay. Wave height was also a bit more, but direction was still the same. We were underway by 06:00 and motoring through the canal to the Delaware Bay end. There was a dredge working at the entrance to the canal and we were advised to stay tight to him in order to avoid the gear he had out. It was good to see the work going on – the bay side entrance was very shallow when we passed through in June. As we cleared the canal we were met by the 3’-4’ seas and the SW wind immediately. Because of the more southerly heading we had to stay on in order to reach the deeper water, the seas were in a confused state and wind was on our beam so we had a lot of rolling motion with spray. After about 30 minutes Polly needed to go below for an item so we decided to relocate to the lower helm station where it would be more comfortable. We remained there for the first 3 hours and thankfully, the autohelm handled most of the steering. As we reached deeper water near the ship channel, we were able to turn to a more northerly heading and also by then, we were getting to the narrow part of the Delaware Bay and the sea state was much more comfortable so we moved up to the bridge. Most of the traffic we encountered was made up of ships and tugs with the occasional fishing boat. Because of the crosswind, one particular tug that was towing a barge was having trouble keeping the barge away from the channel buoys while staying on his side of the channel to allow a nearby ship enough space to pass. It made for interesting VHF conversation between the tug’s skipper and the pilot on board the inbound ship. We made a point of running parallel to the channel but just outside of the buoys, to be certain we did not become part of the conversation.
We entered the C&D Canal at 12:00 and as we were passing under the first bridge (St. George’s), we phoned our son, Matt who lives near the marina where we planned to stay, and arranged a pick-up for later in the afternoon. We arrived at Summit North Marina about an hour after entering the canal and in the mean time, the ship we had been listening to on the bay, had also entered the canal and passed us about 10 minutes before we entered the marina. As we watched the ship bearing down on us from astern, it seemed to fill the entire space but as it overtook us, it was clear there was plenty of room for 2 ships to pass and we still could have been in the water, as well.
Matt’s schedule allowed him to meet us later that afternoon in time for us to accompany him to the daycare school where he would be picking up our Grandson, Cameron. Possibly the main reason we decided to make the stop at Summit North, that day.
We spent the night ashore, with the Bucklen’s and were amazed at how spacious a house seemed, after 10 weeks aboard a 36 foot trawler. As much as we were ready for the voyage to be completed, the WX for Thursday was not looking very good for the leg to Rock Hall so we decided to stay another day. Since the car we left behind was in our son’s driveway we thought we could use the day to learn how to adapt to road traffic again, by doing some shopping etc.
Small World Note: Not long after we arrived at Summit North Marina and were washing off some of the Delaware salt spray, another Monk 36 came in and the home port displayed on the transom was a town in Ontario, Canada. In a discussion with the couple who was aboard, we learned they had left their boat in Solomon’s (on Chesapeake Bay) for the winter and were now on their way back home. Furthermore, they had come up from Rock Hall, that day.